Pilling the Cat

Ugh! Adventure around the house.

Galt, our oldest cat, is 15. He spent a year outside with Ajax (after fighting the Great Urine Wars of 2009). When Ajax died, we thought we'd conduct the grand experiment of letting Galt back into the house (because Galt's a very personable doglike cat, and the children love him).

So, we take the old cat to the vet. Said cat used to weigh 15 pounds. Now he's down to a too-svelte 7.5 or so, and the vet wanted to run a bunch of tests on him. Said tests commenced with results soon following. The verdict: Galt's hyperthyroid and needs daily medicine.

Pilling a cat is about as fun as...you can fill in the blank here. In the interest of not being too vulgar, I'll say "bathing a snapping turtle who hasn't eaten in 2 weeks." Yeah, that fun. The first few nights were a dream. It went like this:

1. Trap cat.
2. Smile at cat.
3. Stuff pill (using hand) in cat's gullet
4. Stroke cat's chin and mumble sweet threats
5. Free cat until tomorrow

Not bad, eh? Well, no pill gun in the Noggle household of late...that worked until the cat realized this was going to be a nightly thing. Now he's a bit wiser.

Just last week a friend told me a cat pilling story that included cat antics, human cunning, and a bunch of cat slobber. Oh, no, that'll never happen to ME, I thought. I have this cat-pilling process all down.

Tonight...it took no fewer than 6 tries to pill this cat. And I'm by myself this evening, so once I let the cat go thinking he'd swallowed the pill, I had to coax him back into my loving, pilling arms again using every piece of wit I owned. I prevailed (somehow), and then it was like an infinite loop of pill chucking. Everytime this orange pill came outta the cat, it was wetter, slimier, and, well, less orange.

I still have all my fingers, though; I still have all my fingers THIS TIME.

Is a four-year old too young to pill a cat? That sounds like a good chore.

hln

Posted by hln at May 26, 2011 06:57 PM | Cats! | TrackBack